{"id":16196,"date":"2015-07-13T23:56:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T15:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cliffs-chasms-and-craters-revealed-in-latest-new-horizons-images\/"},"modified":"2015-07-13T23:56:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T15:56:29","slug":"cliffs-chasms-and-craters-revealed-in-latest-new-horizons-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cliffs-chasms-and-craters-revealed-in-latest-new-horizons-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Cliffs, chasms and craters revealed in latest New Horizons images"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An
An annotated version of an image of Pluto captured July 11 by New Horizons\u2019 Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument. Pluto\u2019s northern hemisphere appears in the image, with its equator near the bottom of the disk. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first hints of dramatic cliffs, chasms and craters are showing up in new imagery of Pluto and its Texas-sized moon Charon as NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft prepares to bolt by the icy worlds Tuesday.<\/p>\n

New Horizons\u2019 team released fresh pictures of Pluto and Charon late Sunday, showing sharp terrain drops and surface details with refining resolution. The spacecraft \u2014 powered by plutonium and with dimensions the size of a baby grand piano \u2014 took the images Saturday with its long-range telescopic camera as it traveled nearly 3 billion miles from Earth.<\/p>\n

The sharp-eyed imager shows linear features that might be cliffs on Pluto, plus a circular marking that could be an impact crater, according to a NASA statement accompanying the image release.<\/p>\n

A bright heart-shaped region spotted earlier in the mission is visible rotating into view on the left side of Pluto. That site will be near where Pluto passes closest to Pluto on Tuesday when it zooms 7,800 miles above the icy dwarf\u2019s surface at 7:49:57 a.m. EDT (1149:57 GMT).<\/p>\n

Pluto\u2019s moon Charon, the largest of its five known satellites, is also becoming a spectacle.<\/p>\n

Charon appeared gray and featureless from Earth-based observations, but New Horizons is revealing it to be a complex place covered with craters and deep chasms, one of which is longer and miles deeper than Earth\u2019s Grand Canyon, according to scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first clear evidence of faulting and surface disruption on Charon,\u201d said William McKinnon, deputy lead scientist on New Horizons\u2019 geology and geophysics investigation team based at the Washington University in St. Louis. \u201cNew Horizons has transformed our view of this distant moon from a nearly featureless ball of ice to a world displaying all kinds of geologic activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A shot of Pluto\u2019s moon Charon shows apparent impact craters, chasms and a puzzling dark region near the moon\u2019s north pole. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The crater pictured near Charon\u2019s equator \u2014 at the bottom center of the moon as seen in the July 11 image \u2014 measures about 60 miles across and exhibits bright rays reaching out from a dark center. The crater\u2019s appearance suggests it formed some time in the last billion years during Charon\u2019s relatively recent history.<\/p>\n

The dark color at its center could be evidence that the impactor that excavated the crater exposed a different type of ice, or icy material with larger grain sizes, according to scientists.<\/p>\n

Alan Stern, New Horizons\u2019 principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute, said Sunday that the mission\u2019s data confirms previous discoveries that Charon is covered in water ice.<\/p>\n

Charon is dominated by bright gray colors indicative of exposed ice, but a dark patch near the moon\u2019s north pole continues to defy explanation. New Horizons will pass about 18,000 miles from the moon at its closest approach, when the spacecraft will scan its cameras and instruments across Pluto and Charon, looking for clues to each body\u2019s surface composition, Pluto\u2019s atmospheric makeup and searching for traces of a tenuous atmosphere on Charon.<\/p>\n

New Horizons will pass by Pluto at a relative speed of about 30,800 mph, and it moved within a million miles of the icy dwarf planet at 11:23 p.m. EDT Sunday (0323 GMT Monday).<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An annotated version of an image of Pluto captured July 11 by New Horizons\u2019 Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument. Pluto\u2019s northern hemisphere appears in the image, with its equator near the bottom of the disk. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI The first hints of dramatic cliffs, chasms and craters are showing up in new imagery of Pluto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1861,2174,2848,4004,2612],"class_list":["post-16196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-jhuapl","tag-new-horizons","tag-pluto","tag-pluto-flyby","tag-swri"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}